Governor speaks about convicted rapist

This is a great story which shows the Gov. has his priorities mixed up, he is more worried about someone who hasn't verified his info than the registry littered with mistakes. Mistakes made by the interchange of info between counties (and their private registries) and the state's main registry. Sounds like this state needs a good Systems Analyst.

6-1-2012 Alabama:

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley is speaking about a rapist who fell off the map and allegedly struck again.

Fredrick Smiley fell off the map for three years.

According to the state's sex offender registry, five days after his arrest for rape in Mobile, Smiley is still listed as being locked up in Montgomery County.

"Well obviously, that's something that needs to be worked on," said Bentley.

The keeping track of offenders is something Bentley said is a must.

"I'd like to think that people can change and be rehabilitated, but true sex offenders; it's hard to rehabilitate these people. We need to know where they are," said Bentley.

FOX10 checked into several other sex offenders on the states registry that were listed as incarcerated. We then typed the same name in where they were they were said to be locked up. The names didn’t match.

We took it a step further and called the agencies the registry said had custody of these people. One of the offenders who was listed as being incarcerated in Bullock County certainly wasn’t there; he's dead.

The Alabama Department of Public Safety wouldn’t do an interview unless we submitted the questions prior.

Instead, they released this statement:

"The Alabama Department of Public Safety Sex Offender Registry is the State repository for sex offender registration information collected by responsible agencies. The Alabama Sex Offender Registry website reflects information on file as received."

We also cross checked the state's registry with the Mobile County Sheriffs Office.

Several of the offender listed in the county that were flagged as being non compliant, meaning they haven’t checked in or been abiding by their restrictions, were listed as compliant through the state.

"Certainly, this is something that needs to be worked on a local level. And if there’s something on a state level that we need to do, we need to do it on a county level also," said Bentley.

Smiley will be in court for a hearing on June 5. ..Source.. by FOX10TV.com